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Business in a Box

261 pointsby conorwadeover 12 years ago

23 comments

drfritznunkieover 12 years ago
I just helped a friend install a iPad POS at his coffee shop this past December using BreadCrumb. We looked at Square Register, but it's rather lackluster feature set ruled it out. Namely, it doesn't support multiple printers or printer queuing (ex. food items get sent to kitchen printer), it doesn't have a modifier system for items (maybe this has changed), and no employee features (clock-in/out) etc..<p>I would say it's good for a small shop without too many needs. As soon as you have to do funky stuff like modify orders (and report on them), you're better off looking elsewhere.<p>I would also caution people against using the wireless printers and go with hard wired ones instead. I know, wires are not fashionable, but they are damn reliable and predictable. The restaurant next door uses wireless STARs with their POSLavu system(should win an award for worst name), and a waitress there told me they constantly had problems with them, and missed orders, etc.<p>Also, for anyone wondering why these thermal printers are $300+ on a good day, they're built like tanks. I bought all the Epson TM printers for my friend from a bankrupt Chinese restaurant. When I asked the owner if he'd had any problems with them (they self tested okay), he said in his broken english something like "even with roaches, they still print!"...<p>Well, I get them home and start pulling them apart to clean them, and they're FULL of dead roaches. Every empty space inside the printers was chock full of roach bodies. The circuit boards were caked with roach shit and all the feed mechanisms had ingested and ground up the roaches that got in their way. And ever single one of these printers still works flawlessly.<p>So yeah, they're worth the $400.
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mmanfrinover 12 years ago
<i></i>Disclosure<i></i>: I work for GoPago, a direct competitor in this market. I am approaching this with a lot of built-in bias.<p>Square is pretty late to the game. Their software is pretty, but it has a much smaller featureset than every other tablet-based POS software out there (including our own competitors).<p>Additionally, their prices do not include the cost of the iPad, which is another $500 on top of this 'business in a box'. They are selling a cash box, an ipad stand, and a card reader for $300, which is not a terribly great deal.<p>Their software does not include modifiers, which is of paramount importance if you're dealing with any volume of customers over a trickle. Their reporting system is slick, but bare.<p>Square works very, very well for P2P transactions. People at farmers markets, flea markets, garage sales, or anywhere where the volume of orders is small will find great value in Square's handheld offerings. But for businesses, it is sincerely lacking.<p>Comparatively, GoPago (my employer) sells GoPago Live, a tablet-based POS system that costs $99 a month, and comes with literally everything you need: stand, swiper, cash drawer, plus the tablet, printer, optional scanner/upc support, wireless chit printer, and a built-in 4G connection. And it comes with the GoPago Mobile storefront -- which allows your customers to send orders (with modifiers, instructions, etc) directly to your POS terminal.<p>I am obviously biased, so take all this with as much salt as you'd like -- but Square has a lackluster offering polished behind a veneer of masterful marketing. Their 'business in a box' is a misnomer, as it does not include the core component: the tablet. GoPago truly offers the complete system.
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msteinertover 12 years ago
Am I missing something here?<p>Square Readers free [1]<p>Heckler Design WindFall iPad Stand $129.99 (free shipping) [2]<p>APG Vasario 1616 Cash Drawer $102.18 (free shipping) [3]<p>I don't understand why I would pay $66.83 for the convenience of having these items shipped to me in a pretty box.<p>[1]: <a href="https://squareup.com/reader" rel="nofollow">https://squareup.com/reader</a> [2]: <a href="http://hecklerdesign.com/windfall/" rel="nofollow">http://hecklerdesign.com/windfall/</a> [3]: <a href="http://www.amazon.com/APG-Vasario-VB-1616-MultiPRO-interface/dp/B000V2ATRQ" rel="nofollow">http://www.amazon.com/APG-Vasario-VB-1616-MultiPRO-interface...</a>
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thinkcompover 12 years ago
It's too bad that Square gets all the press when the tech community should really be spending (at least some of) its energy trying to defeat a law that makes it a federal crime to start a payments company that actually does change things.<p>See <a href="http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=86" rel="nofollow">http://www.aarongreenspan.com/writing/essay.html?id=86</a>
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fijalover 12 years ago
I would honestly love to have a flag saying [US only, don't bother if you're not from there] on articles (like that one)<p>EDIT: this is genuinely not a snarky comment, but this this company will likely go bankrupt before I could use it (for example paypal is not universally available, in SA you need to have an account with a specific bank)
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gamblor956over 12 years ago
Several local restaurants, farmers market vendors, and food trucks use the Square register, but most others use a local competitor PayDragon or another competitor (probably GoPago).<p>The vendors using Square tend to be low-volume, and the use is limited to paying and tipping. Paper receipts are not included with the order, in violation of California law (email is not enough! if you don't get a <i>paper</i> receipt you can technically demand a free meal [EDIT: not actually California law, it's part of the payment processor contract with the vendor]). The vendors don't use Square for any sort of order management because it can't handle that. Square is a good fit because these vendors don't need the advanced features and the simplicity of the interface is a plus.<p>The food trucks using PayDragon or other competitors are much higher volume. You also get printed receipts with your order. At least some of these Square competitors include order management features. Most of them (my primary experience is with PayDragon vendors) are not much more complicated than Square. A lot of these vendors started off on Square and graduated to various competitors when Square stopped being able to handle their needs.
iamwilover 12 years ago
The design is great. Even though I don't have a brick and mortar store, it kinda makes me want to buy one, inexplicably.<p>I wonder how many other things you can sell like this, an all-in-one box, that doesn't smell cheap, like a 10-in-1 games CD?<p>The best thing I can think of right now is 'gardening in a box'. I wonder what 'startup in a box' looks like.
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gmisraover 12 years ago
I own a small business and we have experimented with Square Register and other ipad-based POS systems. Register is by far the least feature rich of all of the offerings we looked at - this is not necessarily a bad thing. Specifically,<p><i>Cons</i><p>* Register is <i>not</i> designed for restaurant use - many of these reasons have already been discussed on this thread, the biggest being the lack of modifier support.<p>* Register does not support weight-based pricing (delis, produce, etc).<p>* Getting meaningful data out of Register is annoying<p>* There really isn't much tech support for Register - for a lot of businesses, being able to pay somebody to come set-up a POS and train the staff is a real feature.<p>* The card reader is unreliable - multiple swipes are often required. (A non-free, durable and reliable card reader would be a good thing for Square to consider offering). * No inventory management. (If there was a nice API, other people could solve this problem.)<p><i>Pros</i><p>* It provides a nicely unified experience across Register and Wallet, which makes enabling Wallet easy.<p>* Square is still our preferred payment processor for credit card transactions. I especially appreciate how they transfer money into our bank account within 24 hours instead of trying to justify why they should be allowed to hold on to it until the end of the month.<p>* It is the easiest to set-up and use, and to train employees to use.<p>In terms of the ipad POS space, none of them are really mature POS systems yet. If your transaction set is simple, or if you're willing to modify it to fit into the POS feature-set, then one of them is probably right for you. If you need Aloha-style customizability, you should wait. My guess is that different POS solutions will generate traction in different markets, and then it will become much clearer with solution is right for your business.<p>Personally, I think the old-style POS's are such a rip-off that figuring out how to make your small business work with a newer technology is worth it. Running a food business, however, I would not recommend Register. If I ran a business with a simpler item set (e.g. a clothing store), then I would seriously consider it.<p><i>Asides</i><p>* Yeah, those printers are like tanks. Two thumbs up!<p>* You definitely want physical security. The bundled stand includes the ability to secure against grab-and-go theft (<a href="http://hecklerdesign.com/windfall/" rel="nofollow">http://hecklerdesign.com/windfall/</a>).<p>(edit: formatting)
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Kerrickover 12 years ago
It's like the hardware bundles that Checkout, POS for Mac OS X, has done for a long time [0]. It's a smart idea, it makes it easier for small business owners because there is actually a <i>large</i> variety of hardware to choose from, and buying a bundle you know is compatible is one less thing to worry about.<p>[0]: <a href="http://www.checkoutapp.com/features/hardware" rel="nofollow">http://www.checkoutapp.com/features/hardware</a>
Robin_Messageover 12 years ago
Looks great, but seems to imply that the cash register doesn't open automatically if you don't buy a printer, which rather ruins the paperless option.<p>It might be a good business idea to create a simple piece of hardware that does the opening if Square doesn't release one soon – hell, the hardware could just be a broken printer by the sound of it.<p>But very cool ephemeralisation none-the-less.
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dclowd9901over 12 years ago
A friend of mine and myself had this idea a while back, while Square was still in its infancy. It would allow people to find out <i>exactly</i> where to find the merchandise that they wanted, its price at that location, the number of items they had in stock, a way to order it if they wanted to purchase it... It would bring non big-box stores into the world of organized supply chain.<p>In order to do this, we posited, we'd have to create a dirt-cheap POS that was also incredibly easy to setup, use, and track inventory.<p>The idea was hung up on the fact that we didn't have an "in" -- the clout to get these smaller stores to invest in us. As we simmered on it, Square turned hockey stick, created a mobile app, and we already saw that they were headed in this direction.<p>Kudos. Even if it wasn't my implementation of the idea, I'm glad to see a step happen in that direction.
abstractbillover 12 years ago
<i>Mount your stand securely to any surface without drilling.</i><p>I wonder if "securely" just means my ipad won't fall over, or if it also somehow means customers can't run away with my ipad while my back is turned. That seems pretty important to me, and hard to achieve without drilling.
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wmblaettlerover 12 years ago
This directly competes with Revel POS: <a href="http://revelsystems.com" rel="nofollow">http://revelsystems.com</a>, though pricing isn't visible on their site, I would believe that Square's offering is also cheaper -- at least to get setup.
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cleaverover 12 years ago
I love it. Unfortunately, it wouldn't work where you need smartcard chip readers. A lot of the world outside the US uses smartcard + PIN — I can't imagine America is too far behind. Hopefully they have that under development.
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signed0over 12 years ago
I had hoped they had come up with a more robust version of their card reader. There have been several times where it has taken 5+ swipes to read my card. I have also witnessed this happen to people in front of me in line. My credit card has never had a problem anywhere else.<p>I've found it easier to just use the Square app on my phone, though I've yet to see someone in front of me in line use it.
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obituary_latteover 12 years ago
Dear everyone:<p>Might you please make use of the noscript functionality provided to you? Many people like myself do not let arbitrary websites run javascript on their machines. Without the use of noscript tags, as is the case here, I am met with an entirely blank page.<p>Had there been something there, something describing what I'm missing and how good it is, I very likely would have enabled js temporarily.<p>But there wasn't, and I didn't.<p>Very best regards,<p>ol
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ssttooover 12 years ago
How do square's fees compare to paypal? I got a free square thingie at a conference, gave it to a vet friend who does a lot of house calls and needs to accept payments. He ended up not using it, preferring to manually type CC#s in paypal's UI. Explanation: cheaper
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rohernover 12 years ago
This is fantastic. The POS space has needed massive disruption for decades. Kill the dinosaurs!
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hoodq19over 12 years ago
I'm not looking for them to include an iPad or a data connection. I'd buy it if it came with customers. The "business in a box" marketing would then be spot on.
prezjordanover 12 years ago
Why is a receipt printer $300? Just curious.
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MatthewBover 12 years ago
One thing Square continues to do right is design. Making a POS system sexy is not an easy thing to do.
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ForFreedomover 12 years ago
Why don't they just do away with the bulky cash register too.
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EToSover 12 years ago
squaredown!